Since Im too lazy to look it up for myself, thought id throw it out there, what is the current state of our kicking game? We were pretty awful last year at both field goals and punting if I remember correctly. Have we done ANYTHING to improve in those areas?

SteelBucks

05-01-2012, 07:26 AM

Since Im too lazy to look it up for myself, thought id throw it out there, what is the current state of our kicking game? We were pretty awful last year at both field goals and punting if I remember correctly. Have we done ANYTHING to improve in those areas?

Our punting was fine last year with Kapinos but Suisham was another story. I don't know anything about the kicker the Steelers picked up in FA but I miss the days of Gary Anderson.

steelblood

05-01-2012, 07:36 AM

Since Im too lazy to look it up for myself, thought id throw it out there, what is the current state of our kicking game? We were pretty awful last year at both field goals and punting if I remember correctly. Have we done ANYTHING to improve in those areas?

Punting was not too bad. But, we are bringing in a good college punter. Drew Butler of Georgia. He signed as a UDFA. He should give Kapinos a run for his money. He averaged 48 yards a kick in 2009 and won the Ray Guy award. The last two years he has only averaged slightly above 44 yards per kick. If he can regain his sophomore form, we'd have quite a weapon. He was one of the top punters in the draft and could have easily been a late round draft choice.

We also signed UDFA kicker Grant Ressell of Missouri. I don't know much about his leg strength. In 2009, he was 26 of 27 for FGs and made all XPs. In 2010, he was 17 of 19 for FGs and 45 of 47 for XPs. In 2011, he was only 9 of 16 on FGs (1 of 5 from 40 yards) and was perfect on XPs. He suffered some sort of hip injury and missed the final 4 or 5 games. I don't know if any injury affected his accuracy early in the season.

phillyesq

05-01-2012, 07:48 AM

Josh Brown is out there as a free agent. Up to last season, he had been quite good, but he spent his entire career in a dome.

ikestops85

05-01-2012, 03:46 PM

Josh Brown is out there as a free agent. Up to last season, he had been quite good, but he spent his entire career in a dome.

i believe Josh Brown kicked against up in SB XL so he didn't play in a dome in Seattle. He did miss a couple of very long FGs in that game if I remember correctly.

RuthlessBurgher

05-01-2012, 04:27 PM

Yeah, I think the Georgia punter (Drew Butler) we signed as a UDFA might stick. He was ranked the #2 punting prospect behind Jacksonville's 3rd round pick Bryan Anger by the NFL.com scouts. Anger had a 58.0 grade and Butler had a 52.2 grade. The only other punter to get drafted was Wisconsin's Brad Nortman (Carolina, 6th round) and he had a 49.5 grade.

NFLDraftScout had Anger first (3-4 round grade) and Butler second as well (6-7 round grade). Nortman was ranked fourth with a 7-FA round grade).

Walterfootball had Anger first (6-7 round grade), then San Diego State's Brian Stahovick (6-7 round grade; he signed with Indy as an UDFA), and Butler ranked third (6-FA round grade).

ESPN.com's scouts actually ranked Butler significantly ahead of Anger. Butler was first overall among punters with a grade of 37, then Anger with a grade of 31. Then 20 other guys all with a grade of 30.

Regarding Jacksonville using a 3rd round pick on a punter, it should be noted that they also took the first punter off the board the year that everyone complained about us using our 4th round pick on Sepulveda. They took Maryland's Adam Podlesh with the 2nd pick in the 4th round, 11 picks before we took Sepulveda.

Flasteel

05-01-2012, 06:37 PM

i was cool with Kapinos last season, but Suisham has never inspired confidence. I know his actual performance is better than my trust in him, but I was really disappointed that we didn't target one of the top kickers out there. I'm not down with Brown either.

Discipline of Steel

05-01-2012, 07:06 PM

OK, i went ahead and did some actual research on our 2011 punting efforts. Our total punts between kapinos and Sepulveda were 59 or about 7th lowest in the league on a per team basis, so that was good.

Avg Gross Punt: S 46.1 (12th) K 45.0 (18th)

Avg Net Punt: S 40.6 (6th) K 38.3 (22nd)

This tells me Kaps punts were a little shorter with a lot less hang time than Seps.
Since Net is the key stat, id say we can improve in this category...and we suffered a drop in production when Sep went down.
Glad we got the 2nd best college punter as a UDFA...

Kicker, we all know the story...Sushi couldnt hit anything past the 30-39 yrd range. That i distinctly remember...and it directly affected our strategy a couple times when Tomlin had no confidence in our FG unit to score from mid range on the field. Couple that with no 4th and 1 offense and we had a problem area. I dont see where we made any respectable move to address this issue yet. No challenge at kicker and where is our FB??

winwithd

05-01-2012, 07:41 PM

Regarding the short yardage issue, I thought Redman had some ridiculous stat last year of being almost perfect in getting the first down in 3rd & 1 and 4th & 1.

Regarding the kicker, I hope we can come up with something better.

Discipline of Steel

05-01-2012, 08:59 PM

Good point on Redman...too bad we didnt take that approach more frequently. Maybe now that BA is gone Redman will be allowed to flaunt his best skillz more often. Still would like to see a kicker who can hit 40+ with somewhat regularity...

RuthlessBurgher

05-01-2012, 09:33 PM

Maybe now that BA is gone Redman will be allowed to flaunt his best skillz more often.

Well, with Mendenhall likely on the shelf at the start of the season, Haley might not have any other choice!